which she’s rebuilding her life, so she makes her most responsible decision to date, and decides that if Michael’s in, she’s out. By the end of the episode—in a moving testament to the sacrifices people make for love—Frank and Leo decide that they’re “not going to let [Julia] quit [her] life,” and choose to accept Michael’s reappearance in their lives, and follow her to Boston. I really like their family dynamic, and am glad to see that Frank’s back in the picture.

Meanwhile, Sam seems to have thrown his old-fashioned desire to take things slow to the wind, and has agreed to introduce Tom to his parents. Dinner with the folks reveals that Sam’s father is less than thrilled about his son’s career choice and, for some reason, Tom agrees. Sam’s dad and boyfriend discuss dance-related hip displacements and knee surgeries over dish duty, and Sam is understandably upset over their lack of support. I like that SMASH is portraying the grief most performers receive due to their career choices, but Tom’s remarks seemed really out of character. Really? Becoming a dancer is risky, but deciding to compose musical numbers is a stable professional path? I’m aware that a certain amount of snobbery exists within the theatre world, in regard to the dancers versus the leads, but nothing we’ve seen of Tom leads me to believe that he would hold with his stated beliefs. Still, Sam and Tom’s argument did lead us to a truly adorable make up scene, (“You are my best self.” AWWWW!) and an awesome and totally accurate quote about theatre as a sort of religion, so I guess the lack of character continuity was worth it.

Things are heating up on the Karen and Dev front, and their couple dramas are actually starting to get interesting. She’s busy with tech rehearsal and not in the mood to see Dev. (Hey, it’s understandable. It’s not easy to talk to someone who doesn’t get what you’re in the middle of, while you’re in the middle of it.) He’s busy using up his vacation days, since he feels fairly irrelevant at work, and of course R.J. is conveniently available to keep him company. A few drinks later, and he’s about to jump into bed with her, when he realizes that he wants to spend the rest of